Fitch Ratings

Fitch Ratings is a rating agency with offices in New York and London. The rating agency has a presence at 51 locations worldwide; it employs 2,000 employees. In Germany it is represented in Frankfurt am Main as Fitch Germany GmbH.

Company History

The foundation of the company under the name Fitch Publishing Company took place on December 24, 1913 by John Knowles Fitch and 1924 began the Fitch Publishing Company financial statistics to be published. She was the first rating agency which used the rating scale from AAA to D. In 1997 the company merged with the company located in London IBCA Limited. The company is one of the six recognized in Germany for regulatory risk weighting agencies.

Fitch Ratings is part of the Fitch Group, a majority-owned subsidiary of 60 percent of Fimalac - Holding, which in turn is majority owned by the French businessman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière. The other 40 percent of the shares of the Fitch Group are held by the U.S. media group Hearst Corporation.

Assessment activity

Fitch Ratings rated companies and banks according to their published figures and assesses the management as well as government bonds. Fitch Ratings has a market share of 15 percent. It is the smallest agency in accordance with the Standard & Poor's, which dominates the world market with and Moody's.

The assessment is paid by the clients, it is 3 to 4 basis points per bond. In the evaluation of government bonds usually can not account be created.

Rating agencies assign only one note. A poor rating, for example, the assessed countries have to pay higher interest on its bonds. The influence of the award of grades is great on the financial institutions and the public and has far-reaching consequences on the economic life of businesses, banks and governments.

Rating codes

Below the rating codes used by Fitch and whose main competitors are listed: